YER
V. GETTING CHRIST'S TOUCH
VI. THE BLESSING OF A BURDEN
VII. HEART-PEACE BEFORE MINISTRY
VIII. MORAL CURVATURES
IX. TRANSFIGURED LIVES
X. THE INTERPRETATION OF SORROW
XI. OTHER PEOPLE
XII. THE BLESSING OF FAITHFULNESS
XIII. WITHOUT AXE OR HAMMER
XIV. DOING THINGS FOR CHRIST
XV. HELPING AND OVER-HELPING
XVI. THE ONLY ONE
XVII. SWIFTNESS IN DUTY
XVIII. THE SHADOWS WE CAST
XIX. THE MEANING OF OPPORTUNITIES
XX. THE SIN OF INGRATITUDE
XXI. SOME SECRETS OF HAPPY HOME LIFE
XXII. GOD'S WINTER PLANTS
XXIII. UNFINISHED LIFE-BUILDING
XXIV. IRON SHOES FOR ROUGH ROADS
XXV. THE SHUTTING OF DOCKS

MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE.

CHAPTER I.

MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE.

"Measure thy life by loss instead of gain;
Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth;
For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice,
And whoso suffers most hath most to give."
--_The Disciples._

According to our Lord's teaching, we can make the most of our life by
losing it. He says that losing the life for his sake is saving it.
There is a lower self that must be trampled down and trampled to death
by the higher self. The alabaster vase must be broken, that the
ointment may flow out to fill the house. The grapes must be crushed,
that there may be wine to drink. The wheat must be bruised, before it
can become bread to feed hunger.

It is so in life. Whole, unbruised, unbroken men are of but little
use. True living is really a succession of battles, in which the
better triumphs over the worse, the spirit over the flesh. Until we
cease to live for self, we have not begun to live at all.

We can never become truly useful and helpful to others until we have
learned this lesson. One may live for self and yet do many pleasant
things for others; but one's life can never become the great blessing
to the world it was meant to be until the law of self-sacrifice has
become its heart principle.

A great oak stands in the forest. It is beautiful in its majesty; it
is ornamental; it casts a pleasant shade. Under its branches the
children play; among its boughs the birds sing. One day the woodman
comes with his axe, and the tree quivers in all its branches, under his
sturdy blows. "I am being destroyed," it cries. So it seems, as the
great tree crashes down to the ground. And the children are sad
because they can play no more beneath